Read Online The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth - Free Book Online

and I managed to give Jack a hug without causing any suspicion (I think). It wasn’t the good-bye I would have liked, and I don’t think I had them utterly convinced that I was happy. But it will have to do. Because now I have a plan, tonight is the night.
    â€œVisitors’ day wears people out.”
    I look up. Young Guy is watching me, stretched out, dwarfing the small armchair he is sitting in. “No kidding,” I say. No one has said much all afternoon.
    â€œYou have a good visit?” he asks. He’s wearing a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled and jeans that are torn at the knees. It’s a nice look on him, I decide. Scruffy-chic.
    â€œSure,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s a good idea to be talking to him. At this point, the last thing I need is a distraction. And he—with his dimple and his scruffy-chic thing going on—is definitely a distraction.
    â€œWho were they?” he asks. “Your v-visitors.”
    â€œMy brother,” I say. “And his family. Who were yours?”
    Good one, Anna. So much for not talking to him.
    â€œMy mom.”
    I picture the older woman, white-haired and stooped.
    â€œMom’s old,” he says, answering my unspoken question. Then his face sort of tenses. It’s virtually unnoticeable, just the slightest indication that speaking requires a little effort. “She was … fifty when she adopted me.”
    â€œAnd … the other woman?”
    Once I would have felt too direct asking this. I would have spent time talking around the issue and tried to slip in questions naturally. But I’ve lost patience for that stuff. It’s hard enough retaining new information without having to add in social graces. I can only hope he feels the same.
    â€œSarah,” he says, pushing his hair behind his ear. “My brother.”
    â€œYou have a brother called Sarah?”
    He frowns, and immediately I want to take it back, pretend I didn’t notice. Then he shakes his head. “Sister. I meant sister.”
    I don’t know much about Young Guy’s specific form of dementia other than what he told me at breakfast the other day, but from his expression, I can tell his slip is dementia-related. Idly, I wonder how many slips I have without noticing. Less idly, I think about how I’d like people to respond when I do.
    â€œMy sister was here today, too,” I tell him. “Jack.”
    I watch as the joke connects with his brain and a smile wriggles onto his face.
    â€œIt looked intense,” I say. “Whatever you were discussing.”
    â€œJust … who is in ch-charge of my affairs when I can no longer hold a pen.” He grimaces, trying to come up with the word. “You know the…”
    â€œPower of attorney?” With an attorney as a brother, “power of attorney” is probably the last expression I’ll keep. After I was diagnosed, he bandied the word around more times than I could count, the one part of my disease that Jack could control.
    â€œYes!” Young Guy exclaims, and I feel a surprising thrill at being the one to provide him with the word.
    â€œMom has my p-power of attorney, but she’s getting older. And she wants to g-give it to Sarah.”
    â€œAnd you don’t?”
    â€œI’m just not sure she’ll respect my wishes.”
    â€œWhich are?”
    He looks at me. “I want to live.”
    â€œAh,” I say, as though this makes everything clear. “And your sister wants to kill you?”
    He blinks, then laughs loudly.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I say. “I’m pretty sure my brother wants to kill me, too.”
    Now we both laugh. It’s one of those laughs that starts as a chuckle and winds up in a full-bellied guffaw. I get so lost in it that I startle when he suddenly leans forward in his seat, then falls onto his knees in front of me. My laughter vanishes. He’s so